RWB

The hoarding EOs also covered export - for exactly the reasons you mentioned. Speculators were making profits moving US gold to Europe during the last year and a half of Hoover's term. That increased greatly after Nov 1932. Hoover's folks had started taking names of those withdrawing gold and not accounting for its redeposit or domestic use (as mentioned in the DE book). FDR wanted to keep US gold in the US, but he could not fight the open commercial market without controlling (raising) the dollar price of gold....in turn, that could not be done with denominated gold coins in circulation or other holdings. (Britain's use of undenominated gold avoided that problem.) The story of Saint-Gaudens Double Eagles neither begins nor ends with just the dates on coins. So, neither does the book. Happy reading!

The movement of bullion from Melting & Refining through Coining, was not a smooth flow. The process was a series of small steps. Each step drew bullion from the previous one, performed its functions, and then sent the bullion forward to the next step. As bullion was transferred from one step to the next each kept a separate record of what they received and what they forwarded. At the end of each work day, bullion that had not been processed, was credited back to the previous step. All the transfers had to match along with accounting for any unavoidable loss (“wastage”). Quantities of bullion were large but losses were minuscule. All discrepancies had to be resolved before anyone involved could go home. Opportunities for theft of bullion or coins were small and limited to certain officers such as the Cashier or Vault Custodian. While mistakes occasionally occurred, a high level of personal honesty was demanded. I don’t know what is meant by “always helping themselves to perks” so more specific information is needed on this question. RE: “With the 1933's worth over face value....with a pending melt coming...maybe someone took advantage of an exchange of other coins for the 1933's.” All gold coins were legal tender at face value in March 1933. All gold coins were worth more than face value in March 1933 based on European commodity prices equal to about $27 per Troy ounce. No one knew what was going to happen. Newspaper consensus was that gold hoarding orders, like the bank holiday, would be temporary measures. (No living person in the USA had ever done business under any monetary standard except gold-based currency.) Melting coins was likely not given much consideration – at least it was not thought likely by Treasury’s Chief Counsel or the holdovers from Hoover’s administration. The option of exchanging gold-for-gold, especially in identical form, is plausible. The people with access to do this were the Coiner, Cashier, Superintendent, and Chief Clerk. Only one of these people had sufficient assets and income to do this and also be able to hold coins for an extended period. This was the Superintendent, Fres Styer, whose real occupation was attorney. (He didn’t bother to mention his Mint job on the 1930 Census form.) The fact that all bullion and coin counts showed nothing missing combined with the fact that 20 to 25 1933 DE were “at liberty,” supports the idea of 1 for 1 exchange by a Mint Officer.

The color adjusted Morgan was just an attempt based on assuming the white highlights were neutral gray and allowing the others to fall in place. As for the slab distortion - it was a good learning experience. Being a "really important person in Numismatics".... naw, I just bumble along as best I can. Knowledgeable and interested collectors, such as the OP, are the truly important persons.

The only coins known to exist outside of the 1945 batch and Langbord coins are in the Smithsonian. Given the date of purchase in latter 1934 they probably came from the Annual Assay pieces that were kept in the Cashier's vault, not in the main vault where the rest of production was stored. It is impossible to tell when or from what die pair sequence these coins were made. The same applies to the other known pieces. The 1945 batch were never photographed or examined in detail.

A couple of days after Kimball's note was written, Philadelphia Mint Superintendent Fox wrote to a correspondent that there were no gold dollars in the Mint except proofs, and the fellow would have to send and extra 25-cents for that.

A license to hold, sell and buy gold was issued by the Treasury Department through the Mint Bureau. The original Treasury regulations relating to gold hoarding set $100 per person as the limit. However, this did not work very well and caused more confusion than anything else. Eventually the "coin collector" definition was adopted as is clear in the original order. No one came knocking on doors. There were several recorded instances of spiteful neighbors - even a spouse - reporting to the USSS about a "hoarder." Some were legitimate, many were not.

This is the abstract side of a letter sent to the Philadelphia Mint requesting 1889 gold dollars. Mint Director Kimball added a personal note about how the coins were being distributed. A few days earlier, he had ordered another 10,000 struck to meet demand while simultaneously not feeding jewelers coins for mutilation.

Actually, much of the material in NNP has not been seen before - including the letters about 15 extra pieces. Also, Barber made it clear there were no proof Columbian halves made. Some of the first pieces made in 1892 were struck of lightly polished planchets, but that does not make a proof coin.

RE: Plastic holder distortions. While researching Saint-Gaudens Eagles for a book (similar to the Double Eagle book) I came across a slab photo of a perfect D/S mintmark - this thing was clear and both letters looked equal in strength. Only found the one coin photo. More digging turned up the same holder and coin -- but the mintmark was a normal "D." What happened? I then checked other coin photos made through slabs from the same authenticator and in a similar accession range. I found more....not doubled mintmarks but distorted letters or features covering very small areas. The distortions were clear with one lighting angle and invisible from another. My "find" was merely an optical illusion. :(

For those waiting for data and search results from NARA via NNP or me, be advised that all the archive locations remain closed to the public. All available documents have been posted to NNP and there are none in the pipeline. I have a large database of material not in NNP. Collectors who have specific research data requests can contact me via PM. I'll help as much as possible. RWB

Smithsonian purchased 2 sets of 1933 coins. It's not known if other museums made requests.

There was a lot of interest in being on the Annual Assay Commission - collectors were not alone. But appointments were made by the President (actually Mint Dire recommended people to Sec Treas, etc.) and there were many applicants in the 1860s and later. Special medals were given to each member and these were highly prized - only 10-15 made and given only to members. RE: "Thanks Roger....I'm going to do more research on Congressman Ashbrook." You will fine more about Ashbrook and his coin collecting in RAC 1905-1908.

RE: "Did these guys discuss or think about the possibility of gold and/or coin ownership changing 180 degrees ?" I don't know. There were few active collectors of gold coins compared to those who collected minor and silver. A look at production numbers for minor, silver and gold proofs will give you an idea of the proportionate breakdown - even assuming only 10% of collectors every bought proofs direct from the Mint. Dave Bowers' books would be a good place to look as well as the Harvey Stack materials. I recall nothing along these lines in Eric Newman's papers....but he was more academic collector than most. That being said - few of the US Mint letters from the early 1930 have been examined in detail. There are court and USSS records but those do not convey personal opinions. The diary of Congressman William Ashbrook expresses his dismay about dropping gold coins in 1933-34 (he was on the 1934 Annual Assay Commission and bought a bunch of the rare Eagles with knife rim at the 1908 Assay Commission meeting and was on the 1934 Annual Assay Commission) but by 1934 his personal collection had been sold after most was stolen from his bank vault.

Right. So far, it seems no one has seen one of these letters....if any were written.

A little confusion about reading the letter --- In a previous letter the Mint Superintendent (Bosbyshell) asked the Exposition president if he (Supt.) could buy 5 half dollars at face value. He was told yes, and Higgenbotham (Expo president) would take care of the cost. A few days later Bosbyshell asked if he could buy 10 additional coins for Mint officers and others. Higgenbotham in above letter says that is OK and he will, again, pay for the coins and also offers to write a personalized letter to accompany each coin. I note that Lee G (above) says this is new to him - and he has written the definitive, in depth book on US classic commemoratives. (Unpublished as yet....unfortunately.) Has anyone seen any of these 15 coins possibly accompanied by letters from Higgenbotham?

I'm finding a bunch of Columbian Exposition letters that apparently have been unknown. One written in April 1893 complains that the roof leaks badly and the Mint people had to cover their equipment and the coin display cases with a tarp.

OK! Thanks!

Is this closer to how the coin colors appears in reality?

Photos of coins in plastic holders will never be a good as ones made without the intervening plastic, reflections, distortions and severe limitations of lighting angles. As you are aware, slight changes in lighting can make a huge difference in appearance of distracting marks. The dark lines at upper left on the top photo seem barely visible on the yellowish bottom photo. The upper photos slightly yellow in color balance, the bottom one looks strange. If you own the coin, which is the better photo - that is, most accurate in color and detail?

Here's the 1923-D Commentary for those who might be interested. There is also information in the previous Appearance section. "Commentary: Denver Mint Superintendent Robert J. Grant was appointed Director of the Mint on October 1, 1923. He succeeded the inept Frank. E. Scoby in this capacity.[1] Although certainly better that Scoby, Grant depended on Assistant Director Mary O’Reilly to keep the Mint Bureau operating and make reports to Congress. At the Denver Mint, Grant was replaced by Frank E. Shepard on November 12, 1923. At the end of the year the Denver Mint held $138,645,762.50 in gold coins. Many of these were produced by the San Francisco Mint and they moved to the larger storage vaults in Denver. Operations were confined to silver dollars for the Pittman silver and double eagles. To hold the silver and gold coins being produced, two more new vaults were added to the Denver Mint. Both were approximately 28x52 feet, and were equipped with an elevator to make movement of heavily loaded trucks easier. This is one of the few collectible branch mint double eagle issues from the 1920s, and is popular with those building gold type sets. The implication from authentication and auction records is that most surviving 1923-D coins were originally shipped to South America where they remained untouched for decades. This is confirmed by the overall high quality of specimens which is contrary to what is seen with surviving U.S. gold from European sources." "[1] Frank E. Scoby was a poker buddy of President Harding with no experience in finance or manufacturing. In the family biography it is noted that he was mint director for too short a time to do any real damage. See Renaissance of American Coinage 1916-1921 for a brief biography and Scoby’s post-directorship occupation."

OCR = Optical Character Recognition. An image of text and tables is scanned internally by the software and the letter shapes and table borders are converted to machine code. This permits almost any search engine or word processing program to identify individual words, numbers, and exact phrases, then display them in their original context.

For those who have not seen the S-G DE book's interior date/mint listings, here is a composite of 1923-D, the shortest entry.

RE: "I just have to figure how to get the key pages on my smartphone so I can reference them when I'm looking at Saints." Could you use your phone to photograph the pages you want for show reference? If you have clear images (using high quality JPG of TIF) load these to your PC, then convert these to Adobe Acrobat and run OCR on them. That will give you searchable text for each page along with the page photos. Plus, you can discard bits you don't want or need. Upload those to your phone. For individuals that's OK....just not for sale or businesses.

These 15 were coins that Philadelphia Mint officers and employees wanted for themselves, not to Exposition officials. None of the historical organizations in and around Philadelphia have any of these. A previous letter requesting 5 coins names Superintendent Bosbyshell, Mint Director Edward O. Leech "...and give the others to such officers as my be your pleasure...." Presumably this would include Acting Director Robert Preston, Philadelphia Mint Chief Clerk Mark Cobb , and Coiner William Steel...but that omits Engraver Charles Barber, Secretary of the Treasury, Treasurer of the U.S., etc., etc.

GoldFinger1969 - 1927-D and 1933 are too rare and too variable in price for a grid to be of much use. 1927-D has auction prices with the individual specimen listing. 1933 has no realistic price, although if the known pieces were available, it might be in the same range as 1927-D, possibly a little more due to the magical date. Just Bob - There were some corrections and tweaks (no 'twerks'), that's all. Auction companies and coin sellers almost never come across meaningful new information. The last time I can recall was the Raymond T Baker family holding, and most of those pieces confirmed what had already been discovered through archival research and published.